Can You Make Money With Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a great way to boost your income. It can be done on the side outside your regular work or it can even be your full-time career. What exactly is dropshipping and how does it work? Dropshipping involves having another company to fulfill and ship the orders made from your website.

Today, electronics, children’s toys, and specialty items are made in bulk. And in reality, dropshipping is a business model that has minimal risks. If done correctly, you will never have to worry about losses. In fact, you also don’t have to worry about handling items and shipping them yourself. This means that you skip all the micromanagement required in handling a business.

Create a Business Entity

The very first thing that you will have to do is to make your own business. This is important especially when it comes to paying your tax and getting the trust of your customers.

Know Who Your Market Is

It is important that you know exactly who your target market is. Do you plan on selling items for children? Or perhaps, you plan on selling products for women? Be sure that you know their tendencies. Once you know who you are selling your items to, that’s the only time that you want to set up your shop.

Know Which Items to Sell

Doing extensive research is a must if you want to know the best items that sell in the market that you have chosen. You will have to take a closer look at Google Trends in order to see which keywords are usually searched by web users.

There are tons of products out there. But of course, you don’t want to sell everything all at once. You also want to reserve items that are truly profitable on your part. And for this reason, you want to check similar sites as well.

Setting up your shop

Are you worried that you can’t set up your own e-commerce website because you don’t have any knowledge of coding? The good thing today is that you can rely on ready-made templates. You will be able to choose from a number of options. And the good thing about it is that it is cheap.

You can even open a Shopify website which allows you to operate your store while you pay a minimal fee monthly.

But of course, you have to also consider the compatibility of the platform you are using to the different dropshipping tools that you plan on using. One of the things that you will have to consider is how to minimize manual work.

Next, you also have to consider if your shop is actually compatible with mobile devices. It is important that your website is mobile-friendly. A mobile-friendly site is also good for SEO considering that most people today simply use their mobile phones in order to connect to the internet.

Have a Reliable Supplier

Next, it is important to find a good and reliable supplier. The good news is that there are plenty of options to choose from. You can take Aliexpress, Salehoo, Doba, Walmart, and even Amazon. You want to compare prices as well as see which software is compatible with which supplier.

You also want to make sure that you compare the best source where you can have the item. You can use tools such as Shoptimate which is a price comparison software that compares merchants from Japan, US, and even in Europe.

You also want to choose the right supplier by checking the feedback. Keep in mind that a bad supplier can also lead to bad business practice that can affect how your customers see your company. Though it can be taxing, you want to consider product feedback and see if there are any bad comments regarding the product or even regarding the company as a whole.

You also want to test how the supplier delivers products. Try ordering for items yourself. Assess the timing, overall customer experience, and gauge if they can be trustworthy as your supplier.

Choose Items That Can be Shipped for Free

You have to consider the possibility of maximizing the use of free shipping. As a dropshipper, you can use free shipping option in two ways. If your supplier can ship items for free, this also means that you can keep your price competitive. This means that you can potentially attract more customers to shop in your store considering that they have to pay less.

On the other hand, there are those dropshippers who take advantage of free shipping option from their suppliers in a different way. There are stores that opt to still ask for additional shipping. This means an additional income from your store. And the good news is that your customers don’t have any idea that the shipping is actually for free.

Amazon Prime allows free shipping while Walmart provides free 2-day shipping on orders that are over $35. If you are choosing Walmart, they perhaps, you can choose items that are more than $35 in the first place.

Automation

Automation is key to running a successful Dropshipping business. You want to make use of the right tools that can check the inventory of your suppliers and sync it with your store. You also want your price to adjust according to the profit margin that you want to get. This will also lessen the time that you have to spend online managing your business.

Make Marketing Your Priority

How are you going to make your store become popular? Do you plan on using social media? Or do you plan on focusing on your branding? With the right marketing strategy, your brand can stand out despite having the same items from your competition.

Social media is a great tool that you can use in order to get to your market. You can even target them. Also, you want to make sure that you take a closer look at your SEO. You want your site to be visible as users search for your company.

Conclusion

Can you actually make money with dropshipping? You just have to play your cards right in order to get the best results from this business.